To Die For

TO DIE FOR               B+                  

USA  Great Britain  (106 mi)  1995  d:  Gus van Sant

What's the point in doing something good if nobody's watching?     
—Suzanne Stone (Nicole Kidman)

DEAD CALM (1989) introduced a young 22-year old Nicole Kidman to movie screens, but it’s her outrageous performance as a celebrity obsessed small town television wannabe in Gus van Sant’s TO DIE FOR that introduced her to the world and remains her most stunning performance in her much heralded career.  Kidman’s range is impressive as she wears so many hats in this film (and stunning outfits) that it seems like she suffers from personality disorder, but what she’s really doing is introducing a character that is literally performing all the time, in every situation she finds herself, just hoping for that rare opportunity of being discovered and becoming a TV star.  It’s all she ever thinks about as van Sant presents this film in overlapping layers, beginning with the montage of tabloids that have a field day with photographs of Suzanne Stone, this glamorous woman who is suspected to have been involved in the murder of her husband, which is seen in the beginning of the film, so everything that’s shown afterwards is seen in flashback, like the renowned structure for Joan Crawford in MILDRED PIERCE (1945).  Based on a novel by Joyce Maynard, the film is unofficially based on the story of Pamela Smart, a 23-year old New Hampshire schoolteacher who conspired with several teenagers to murder her husband and was tried and convicted in 1991, currently serving a life sentence.  Given a different twist by screenwriter Buck Henry, it does maintain the narrative stream-of-conscious sound bite commentary by several different characters offering their views on Suzanne.  Initially Suzanne herself is seen speaking directly to the camera from an unidentified room, which has a modern subtext to it, as the audience hasn’t a clue who she’s speaking to, or under what circumstances.  Her comments continue throughout the film, though, interjected with comments by a few others from her town in New Hampshire who are offering their opinions about what kind of person she is.  These all have a man-on-the-street feel to them, as the speakers are relaxed, talking in familiar settings, and not holding back their real feelings as they speak candidly to the camera.   

Kidman is seen as a pampered Barbie-like beauty queen who’s used to having her way, something of a socialite who is trying everything she can to be noticed, as she’s amazingly ambitious, a woman who has had her career mapped out in front of her since childhood. She marries the cutest guy in town, Matt Dillon as Larry, who works in his father’s bar and also plays drums for a local bar band, which is where Suzanne stands out from the rest, all decked out in a provocatively skimpy outfit so Larry can’t take his eyes off of her, even after they get married, where her dreams of becoming a TV celebrity couldn’t make him prouder.  But instead she gets a job at a nickel and dime local cable channel that just needs someone to run errands from time to time.  But she keeps pitching ideas for the station to run, which they deny, becoming so persistent that the 2-man operation is eventually worn down and put her on the air as the weather lady, where she begins pitching ideas from that forum, one of which is a documentary photo shoot with local high school kids, who are seen as little more than deadbeats.  Always good at discovering new talent, this is Casey Affleck’s first screen appearance, playing a smart mouthed juvenile delinquent, also Alison Folland who plays the mildly overweight girl with no friends that is continually made fun of, while Joaquin Phoenix is given his first major role in his fourth film, playing a completely alienated high school kid whose sullen nature leaves him largely strung out and disconnected from reality.  All three have a crush on Suzanne, always wearing killer outfits, where their teenage hormones are simply aroused by her open sense of sexual provocation.  In contrast, these kids wear drab indistinguishable sweat gear, but these are the kids who agree to be in the movie, and despite working on this film day and night, it’s clear there’s no substance to it as these kids have nothing to say.  Instead, it may be a front for other ambitions.

When Larry suggests Suzanne give up the Hollywood dream and come work in the bar with him, it’s as if she has a Stepford wife moment, where she coolly doesn’t reveal what she really thinks, but she finds this insult so personally degrading that she really has no use for her husband any more after that, where instead he needs to be removed as an obstruction to her path of achieving success.  Suzanne is simply not a woman who takes no for an answer, eventually plotting behind the scenes with these teen kids to have him removed from the picture.  Larry is right, however, as she is so determined and single-mindedly sure of herself, rock solid in her belief in herself, yet has nothing to show for it.  Her pathetic attempts to manipulate a few socially disconnected teenage kids borders on pandering and sexual indecency, perhaps even rape, but they’re not the types that go running to the authorities.  Besides, they’re delusionally inclined to think she’s a cool adult who may actually have some interest in them.  The way this all plays out has a unique feel to it, as the sick sarcasm is so pronounced, at moments hilarious, yet darkly disturbing the next, like the sequence when Suzanne receives the news of her husband’s death, making a beeline to the awaiting reporters as the television plays “The Star Spangled Banner,” where it’s as if she’s performing a screen test.  It intentionally makes the audience feel uncomfortable, where their more mature perceptions will not likely match those of adolescent teenage kids who every day are the targets of every advertising campaign across the nation, where they have yet to establish individual identities, as they’re still so confused at being bought, sold, and influenced through the market place.  David Cronenberg makes a somber, late appearance in the movie, but his actions are disturbingly decisive.    

A Dangerous Method

A DANGEROUS METHOD                           C+                    

Great Britain  Germany  Canada  Switzerland  (99 mi)  2011  d:  David Cronenberg

Sort of like watching paint dry, as this ultra repressive, interior chamber drama moves with the glacial pace of Chekhov, usually stuck inside the sanctitude of one of many rooms but without his power of observation and social dissection.  Instead, this is a historical costume drama that presupposes the meeting of Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) and Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) at the dawn of the psychoanalytic age around the turn of the 20th century.  The film is a Christopher Hampton adaptation of his own play called A Talking Cure, which was adapted from John Kerr’s book using the film title.  As such, all action is advanced by dialogue, much of it through patient to therapist sessions, but also person to person discussions and through various letters sent between the two colleagues, who after striking up a rich personal friendship and professional associative relationship fell out of favor with each other, basically ending all communication.  Since the two are known to have fathered what is known today as the practice of psychoanalysis, it’s ironic that in their own relationship they couldn’t practice what they preached, falling instead into utter dysfunction.  While there is no doubt this raises intelligent issues, it will be hard to find an audience that is moved or actively interested in a cold intellectual discussion of their methodology as a science.  Unfortunately, this was reminiscent of Richard Linklater’s WAKING LIFE (2001), his animated, color-coated, drug fantasia that becomes a dull soliloquy of endless ethereal monologues spoken as if in a perpetual daydream that brought back memories of being lectured to, as the tone of the entire film here is as if what it has to say is so extremely important that it begins to sound entirely self-serving instead of interesting.  Both of these men, Jung and Freud, seem so arrogantly self-centered and full of themselves that it’s hard to believe anyone ever listened to either one of them.  

The two actors are among the best actors working today, but here both are toned down and restricted to emotionally straight jacketed performances, especially Fassbender as Jung, who always looks like he’s framed in a picture book of some kind or an upscale magazine devoted to the elegant lifestyles of the wealthy class living in the luxurious mansions along beautiful Lake Zurich.  His wife inherited money, so his ultra civilized dress and manner represents wealth and status, but also social rigidity, where one can suffocate in the righteous air of theoretical ideas, almost as if the body is completely cut off from the head attached to it.  Freud’s studies in Vienna, Austria led him to the conclusion that all neurotic behavior was caused from sexual repression, leading to a dialogue between patient and therapist in an attempt to discover the root of the problem, using dream analysis and a discussion probing the unconscious mind in an attempt to unlock the key to a healthier life.  Jung followed in his footsteps in Zurich, Switzerland, but refused to single out sex as a cause of repression, believing there could be a myriad of other possibilities.  Both believed in intensive dream analysis, which they shared with one another, holding nothing back about their private lives in their intimate discussions until eventually something happened to change all that.  Enter Keira Knightley, aka:  Sabina Spielrein, the patient.  If ever there was a hysterical, overacted performance, it is this one, which is barely watchable at times.  Add to this the phony accents and you’ve got yourself a turkey of a performance in a film that’s already difficult to engage with due to the sometimes studious and at times professorial content of the endless discussions. 

When Sabina describes her abusive family history, which has left her in an apoplectic state of continual hysteria, no one needs a degree in psychology to understand what a fragile and terrible condition she is in, where her body is filled with uncontrollable spasms reacting to her personal fears of continually being beaten by her father.  Making matters worse, she enjoys the punishment.  Promoting his inner calm, Jung is successful at getting her to accept herself as she is, an exceptionally well-educated woman unafraid to delve into the intellectual matters at hand, joining the psychoanalytic profession, though taking issue with both her colleagues.  While this speaks of the success of therapy, no one believes Sabina is ever cured due to Knightley’s sprawling performance which is all over the place, always eccentric, never really losing the hysteria, just the flinching body spasms.  While there’s not a lot to see and nothing particularly engaging, only lines of trust that are continually crossed, the film really dovetails off the charts, perhaps entirely miscast, where no character is the least bit interesting or sympathetic, made worse by the stifling oppressive tone of scholarly reserve, where anything outside this artificially passive world of stately elegance and manners is already seen as out of the ordinary and eventually out of bounds.  It well describes the fissure that came between the two men, all of which precedes the advent of World War One, a crisis of unthinkable proportions which would change the thinking forever about battle fatigue and chronic stress syndrome.  But these terms hadn’t yet been invented as Freud and Jung continue to squabble like children about their self-professed techniques in combating psychological relief.  Both men are out of  favor today due to advancements in the use of medicine for mental health treatment, which has all but replaced the idea of dream analysis and free associative psychoanalytic therapy sessions which are now largely based on an accumulation of family history and circumstances.  The elegance and classical style used by Cronenberg never varies, matched by the music of Howard Shore who steals excerpts from a Viennese composer from the same era, the uncredited Gustav Mahler.

Post Script – The irony is not lost to viewers, as any therapist who would actually do what is suggested here by one of the founders of the field would likely lose their license, be thrown out of practice, and receive a hefty jail sentence.  But of course, they were pioneers slogging their way through the wilderness. 

Joint Body

JOINT BODY             C        

USA  (86 mi)  2011  ‘Scope  d:  Brian Jun                    Official Facebook

A film shot in the small towns of Southern Illinois, accentuated by bars, strip clubs, motel rooms, and local police departments, offering a decidedly different pace of life, like the kind of place where one could start a new life.  Nick Burke (Mark Pellegrino) is just such a man, recently released on parole in his mid forties, but a violent offender since age 15.  Looking a bit like Viggo Mortensen from Cronenberg’s A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE (2005), perhaps a similar ultra violent character who never got a fair shake out of life, this is a guy looking for a fresh start.  Divorced from his wife while incarcerated, a condition of parole is that he relinquish all custody rights of his daughter, someone he obviously obsesses about, still carrying her picture around with him at all times, now he’s a quiet loner not looking for any hassles.  Simultaneously, we see a story developing of Michelle (Alicia Witt), an independent minded exotic dancer also living on her own, where as luck would have it they live in the same motel.  Nick’s younger brother (Ryan O’Nan) shows up describing his life as a newlywed, also a police officer just out of the academy, where he’s optimistic, inexplicably supplying him with a gun for protection, which of course immediately comes into play. 

Just as Nick gets the nerve to ask his attractive neighbor for coffee, where she agrees to meet in a few minutes, Michelle also has a visitor from her past, a deranged veteran that she barely knows who has obsessed about her for months overseas and violently confronts her, demanding a personal reward for his service to his country, sticking a gun in her face as he brutally rapes her in her own room, making so much commotion Nick overhears and comes to intervene, leaving both men shot and lying on the ground while Michelle limps out of the room.  Society judges harshly with violent offenders, offering no leeway when it comes to the use of guns, so Nick is screwed, having violated parole, no matter what his intentions were in the matter.  Michelle, on the other hand, appreciates the effort and visits him in the hospital, helping him out with a few things, like a new pair of clothes and money from his brother that he kept hidden in the room. However she runs into a police detective who interrogates her, where the obvious slant is a career criminal has murdered a highly decorated war veteran, so what interest does she have with this loser?  It’s a good question, and one she apparently doesn’t ask herself, as even though the detective is a belligerent prick with her, what does she stand to gain by helping a wanted outlaw?  Nevertheless, the two are outlaws on the run soon afterwards, which you’d think might lead somewhere, but it doesn’t.  By the way, the title refers to the body language of convicts when they come out of prison (the joint), easy to detect, supposedly, by those in the know. 

While Pellegrino and Witt are both excellent, especially as they examine each other's haunted pasts, but the director’s own script is abysmally weak, as rather than getting the hell out of town and starting a new life far away with a couple thousand dollars in their pockets, they never leave the vicinity and continue to show up in very public places like restaurants and bars, as if they’re just waiting to get caught.  The narrative couldn’t be more hackneyed and stereotypical, where there’s no investment whatsoever in a unique idea or vision, where the audience is rather appalled at the choices the characters make, as they appear to be smarter than that.  It’s a waste of good performances, including Nick’s brother and his wife (Daesha Lynn) after a fairly decent set up, where the director allows a slow introductory development of the characters within an observant view of the neighboring community, only to have the story itself betray the audience’s piqued interest.  Not sure why the director couldn’t see the contrivances in this kind of finale, which would be dull even by Movie of the Week television standards, but after listening to him address the audience afterwards, he’s apparently still living on the laurels of his first film STEEL CITY, which won the Grand Jury prize at Sundance in 2006.       

Barney's Version

BARNEY’S VERSION                                               C                    

USA  (132 mi)  2010  d:  Richard J. Lewis 

An erratic and horribly uneven version of the vulgar and boisterous life of Barney (Paul Giamatti), loosely based on the Mordecai Richler novel, who also provided the original source material for the esteemed Canadian film about growing up in Montreal as a Jewish teenager in THE APPRENTICESHIP OF DUDDY KRAVITZ (1974), starring a very young Richard Dreyfuss.  They play out as bookends in the author’s life, where Kravitz was a bundle of nervous energy, a smart and overly ambitious  kid who would stoop to anything to make an extra buck, while Barney has already discovered financial success by producing the long-running, yet brainless and sleazy television soap opera O’Malley of the North that resembles Russ Meyer without the sex and nudity.  The performances are excellent, but there's something missing in the tone of the story where the witty sarcasm of the book does not translate well onto the screen.  While it should be this sprawling uproariously funny work, it's instead a fidgety affair with only intermittent humor, much of it way over the top in Jewish stereotype.  Never as nuanced as a Barry Levinson film, the premise is a bit outrageous, where at his second marriage (his first wife committed suicide) he goes existentialist at his own ridiculously exorbitant Jewish wedding to Minnie Driver, which seemingly goes on forever, wandering around as if in an alcoholic daze questioning the meaning of it all, until he sets his eyes on Rosamund Pike, which alters his life forever, immediately falling head over heels for her and telling her so, which is not exactly in good taste at one’s own wedding.  How about waiting a week?  So while that’s the real issue, Barney and his equally candid father, Dustin Hoffman, are portrayed as more uncivilized lower class Jews, not in the same financial bracket as Driver and her ostentatiously rich father, so there’s a wedge between them from the beginning. 

The two don’t appear destined to spend the rest of their lives together and are aided by a miniature side story, which is a film in itself.  Barney’s best man at the wedding is a real loutishly off-color character, Boogie Moscovitch (Scott Speedman), think Thomas Haden Church in SIDEWAYS (2004), a guy that taught Barney everything he knows, his carnal conscience, who’s always high on some illegal substance, eventually becoming a junky that Barney intends to help sober up, inviting him to the summer home, a cabin on a lake, where in a wrong turn somewhere, has sex with Minnie Driver, paving the way for the intended divorce.  But that’s only half the story, as after Driver leaves in hysterics running back to Daddy, Barney has a drunken tête a tête with his friend, which also includes ill-advised playful gestures with a loaded gun.  What happens afterwards is lost in a drunken stupor, or so it seems, as Boogie has disappeared, perhaps shot by Barney, where the police are called sometime after Barney sobers up and drag the lake but can’t find a body.  Barney quickly moves on after this incident, but it stays with him for the rest of his life, where perhaps only he knows what really happened, or more likely, the trauma wiped out whatever did take place from his memory banks.   

Barney wastes no time rediscovering Pike, who he’s been pursuing all along, and who’s rather flattered at the gesture.  And what’s not to like, especially considering he’s an obnoxious, insecure, cigar-smoking alcoholic with a flair for bad taste, and the film does a few time alterations, jumping ahead to when they’re already married with grown children before moving back to early childhood again, where she sacrifices her budding career in the radio business to become a mother of two children.  They appear happily married and content, where she is “the one” for him, but he drinks too much and indulges in only what he wants, like insulting her friends and watching hockey games in bars, leaving her feeling less than satisfied, so when a good looking guy shows up around the lake (Bruce Greenwood), a guy already working in the radio business, Pike gets the urge to return to work, with this new guy, of course.  Barney’s life spirals all out of control, initially suspecting something’s up before he makes a stupid decision on a drunken binge, literally driving her into his arms.  Like the sexual incident in his earlier marriage, Pike uses this for all it’s worth, even having the kids gang up against him, ultimately moving in with the hunk in the radio business, something Barney unfortunately can’t even remember, as he has early onset of Alzheimer’s Disease and continues to believe they’re happily married.  It’s a tragic story of lost opportunities, told with plenty of gusto by a first person narrator who may be known for embellishing as he looks back on his life, suggesting there’s also plenty to be grateful for.  Anna Hopkins as his daughter makes a terrific screen appearance, while brief cameos of Canadian filmmakers Denys Arcand (as the erudite waiter), not to mention Atom Egoyan and David Cronenberg (as TV directors) grace the screen.